Defiant Heart (Starlight Cove Book 1)

BACK AT BRADY’S HOUSE, I stepped out of the hall bathroom and headed toward the guest room, stopping dead in my tracks before I made it through the doorway. The bed had been stripped and was now just a bare mattress, and my bag wasn’t anywhere to be found.

Cocking my head to the side, I made my way to Brady’s room, and sure enough, my bag sat on the floor on my side of the bed. Though, truth be told, when I’d slept in here last night, Brady’s side was my side. I hadn’t left the warmth of his body the entire time.

“Did you kick me out of my accommodations, Sheriff?”

Brady looked up from where he set his phone on his nightstand, his gaze sweeping me from head to toe. Then he strode toward me, a white piece of fabric clutched in his hand. “If you think you’re sleeping anywhere but my bed after I saw your van smashed within an inch of its life this morning, you haven’t been paying attention.”

As soon as he stood in front of me, he gripped the hem of my sweater and pulled it up and over my head, his eyes heating when he found me bare beneath it. “You always go out in public like this?” he asked as he circled his thumb around my nipple.

With a grin, I arched toward him, my body yearning for more. “I’m not sure if you’ve noticed this, Sheriff, but I don’t exactly have a need for support.”

He leaned down, engulfing a nipple in his mouth and sucking deep, pulling a gasp straight from my lips. “What I’ve noticed is your tits are perfect.”

Instead of continuing with his torture, he pulled the T-shirt over my head and covered me. Then he dropped to his knees—this big, beautiful, scowly man—and slid my leggings down over my hips until they pooled at my ankles, his brow lifting when he found I was wearing panties.

I rolled my eyes, bracing a hand on his shoulder as I lifted first one leg, then the other, letting him undress me. “I wasn’t going to be bare-assed while I was leading a one-on-one yoga class for Harper.”

He lifted the hem of the T-shirt he’d dressed me in, then pressed a kiss to my bare hip. “That’s fine, but you’re not wearing them in my bed.”

Then he stood, hauling me over his shoulder and chuckling lowly at my yelp. In three long strides, I was airborne before bouncing on the mattress as giggles erupted from me. My laughter died on my lips as soon as our gazes met. He reached behind his head and pulled off his shirt in one smooth motion. His jeans went next, and then he shut off the light before he crawled in beside me wearing nothing but black boxer briefs that did little to hide his reaction to me.

But instead of pouncing on me like I thought he would, he gathered me in close, my back resting against his chest, and tucked his legs beneath mine so every inch of me was touching some part of him.

I exhaled on a sigh, not realizing I’d needed this until he’d given it to me. The past twenty-four hours had been a roller-coaster ride, from Brady showing up in the storm to him dragging me away to having the best sex of my life—twice—with the man I wasn’t supposed to get along with, let alone actually care about, to finding my home crushed beneath a tree. Not to mention the secrets he’d shared, opening up to me in a way I knew he didn’t with others. But he had with me. For some reason, he’d seen me as someone worthy of those secrets.

He saw me, too, as someone worthy of his concern.

He’d shown me that in a dozen different ways, but it’d taken a tree falling on my van for me to finally see it. I wasn’t used to being cared for like this. Wasn’t used to being…treasured.

My stomach felt like a rocket launched into space, a volcano ready to erupt. I didn’t know how Brady and I fit together, only that we did. Had no idea how this could ever work between us, only that I wanted it to.

As we lay there, I felt the tension leave his body, his lips pressed against the back of my neck, nose buried in my hair, as if reminding himself I was here. I was safe.

“Did you tell your parents?” he asked after a while.

“That I’m lying in bed with you? No. But I could call them now if you want.”

He shifted and tweaked my nipple, pulling a gasped laugh from me. “About your van, smartass.”

“Hmm? Oh, no. I talked to my mom this morning before I knew about it.”

“Are you going to tell them?”

“Why would I?”

He grunted, and there must’ve been some crazy voodoo magic working between us, because I could tell just from that single non-syllable that he wasn’t happy about that.

I ran my fingers over his forearm that was locked across my chest, holding me to him. “I’ve been looking after myself for a long time, Brady.”

He grumbled something under his breath, and when I asked him to speak up, he said, “You shouldn’t always have to look after yourself. Someone else should be looking out for you too.”

“And who should that someone else be?”

He tightened his arms around me and brushed his lips across the length of my neck, his unspoken me as loud as if he’d screamed it.

“I might be on board with something like that. What does this looking out for me entail? Are we talking about, like, morning smoothies? Or just orgasms?”

He slid his hand under my shirt and cupped one of my breasts, brushing his thumb over the already hardened peak. “Why not both?”

“I don’t want to be greedy.”

He breathed out a laugh and snaked his hand down my stomach to cup my bare pussy, his finger sliding between my lips and teasing my clit. “We both know that’s a lie. Your pussy’s greedy as hell, isn’t it?”

“Only for you, apparently.” I gasped and rocked into his hand, stroking myself faster over his questing finger. “I guess it likes when someone looks out for me.”

He groaned into my neck even as he dipped a finger inside me before dragging the wetness up and circling my clit again. “This wasn’t supposed to happen.”

“No?” I asked, breathless and arching into him already. “That why you took my panties?”

“I just wanted to hold you tonight,” he said against my skin, his voice so low, I barely heard him. But I did. I heard every word—what he was saying aloud as well as everything unspoken between us. Brady needed a reminder that I was okay. That whatever irrational fears he’d harbored following his mother’s death hadn’t been relived with me. While he hadn’t been able to save either of his parents from their demises, he’d saved me.

“Why can’t we do both?” I reached back and slipped my hand into his boxers, finding him ready for me. His cock was long and thick and so deliciously hard, I needed him inside me. I pulled him out of his boxer briefs as I arched against him, lifting my leg and hooking it back over his, opening myself up to him and whatever he wanted to do to me.

He slid into me then, filling me in slow, deep thrusts. It was unhurried and languid, a soft, sleepy fuck that I didn’t know I’d needed after the day I’d had but melted into anyway. But somehow, he’d known. He read me so well, studied every cue I’d ever given, and stored all that information away, just so he’d know what I needed. Just so he could pull it out at any time and give it to me.

My orgasm grew slowly, a steady climb that built with each gentle thrust of him inside me, with each circle of his fingers against my clit, with each soft brush of his lips against my neck, my ear, my jaw.

“Brady…” I breathed, reaching up to slide my fingers into his hair, needing his mouth on mine. Needing to be as connected to him as I possibly could when he made me fall apart.

“I’ve got you, pretty girl,” he said before he pressed his lips to mine, his tongue sweeping into my mouth as the world exploded around me.

And he did have me. In everything, not just this. Not just my body, but my heart, too. My soul. I didn’t know how it’d happened, but somewhere along the way, between our bickering and banter, our fighting and fucking, I’d fallen for the grumpy sheriff of a town where I’d never intended to stay.